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§ Private Profile · London, United Kingdom
Federated AI and data science platform enabling privacy-preserving data analytics for healthcare, life sciences, and financial services.
Bitfount is a technology company based in London that develops a federated artificial intelligence and data science platform designed to enable secure analytics by sending algorithms directly to data locations rather than transferring raw information. The platform supports federated machine learning and private SQL queries, allowing secure B2B data collaboration across the healthcare, life sciences, and financial services sectors. Utilizing an OpenSaaS business model that combines an open source software development kit with proprietary SaaS features, the system integrates seamlessly with existing electronic health records, clinical trial systems, and imaging databases. To scale its operations and expand its engineering team, the enterprise has raised $5 million in seed funding through a financing round led by venture capital firms Ahren and Speedinvest, alongside individual investor Rick Hao. Bitfount was established in 2020, though its specific founders remain publicly undisclosed.
Bitfount has raised $13.0M across 2 funding rounds.
Bitfount has raised $13.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Bitfount has raised $13.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Bitfount's investors include Business Growth Fund, Parkwalk Advisors, Ahren Innovation Capital, Foresight Group, Pace Ventures, Portfolio Ventures, Rick Hao.
Bitfount is a London-based technology company founded in 2020 that builds a federated AI and data science platform enabling privacy-preserving data analytics and collaboration without sharing raw data.[1][3][4] It sends algorithms to data locations instead, serving healthcare/life sciences, financial services, and academic research sectors by solving silos in sensitive data access for ML model training, validation, and deployment on imaging, EHR, and tabular data.[1][2][5] The platform supports privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) like differential privacy, secure multi-party computation (SMPC), and PrivateSQL, with a hybrid open-source/SaaS ("OpenSaaS") model including SDK, web catalogue, granular access controls, and audit logs; it has raised $5M in seed funding led by Ahren and Speedinvest to expand engineering and product.[1][3]
Bitfount accelerates applications like clinical trials by automating patient eligibility screening on-site—reducing image analysis from 30 minutes to seconds per image, boosting trial yields, and ensuring GDPR/HIPAA compliance with no data transfer.[2][5] Its no-code desktop app or Python SDK installs in minutes via pip/Docker, integrates with Hugging Face models, and runs behind firewalls on-premise or in-cloud.[5]
Bitfount emerged from the core belief that society's most valuable sensitive data—needed for pressing problems like healthcare advancements—remains siloed due to privacy regulations and infrastructure limits, forcing slow, risky workarounds.[3][4] Founded in 2020 in London, UK, the company was driven by founders including CEO with experience at EndoSpot and as Director/General Counsel of R&D at Rambam Health Care; a Professor of Artificial Medical Intelligence at University College London; and Head of Real World Evidence, Oncology R&D at AstraZeneca.[4]
The idea crystallized around "sending algorithms to data" to bypass months-long legal processes for data sharing, unlocking federated analytics and ML.[1][3] Early traction came via healthcare pilots, like on-site AI for clinical trial screening in hospitals, proving rapid deployment and value extraction from unused clinical data.[2] Seed funding in 2021 fueled product hardening, team growth, and architectural innovations like message-based systems for easier IT deployment.[1]
Bitfount rides the federated learning and privacy-preserving data collaboration trend, amplified by tightening regulations (GDPR, HIPAA) and AI's hunger for siloed sensitive data in healthcare, finance, and research.[1][3][4] Timing is ideal amid post-2020 AI boom and life sciences' shift to real-world evidence/ML for drug discovery/trials, where data sharing barriers stall progress—Bitfount unlocks "intractable" datasets by enabling seamless B2B collaborations.[2][4]
Market forces like rising PET adoption, cloud/on-prem hybrid demands, and open-source AI ecosystems favor it, reducing trial costs/yield gaps (e.g., orders-of-magnitude site efficiency gains).[2][5] It influences the ecosystem by pioneering "OpenSaaS" for federated tech, fostering networks for cross-institution AI (e.g., hospital consortia), and setting deployment standards that lower barriers for non-tech data custodians.[1][3]
Bitfount is poised to scale as federated AI becomes infrastructure for regulated industries, with next steps likely including global expansion, deeper healthcare integrations (e.g., more trial protocols, pharma partnerships), and PET enhancements amid evolving regs like EU AI Act.[1][2][5] Trends like multimodal AI on edge data, sovereign clouds, and collaborative RWE will propel growth, potentially drawing Series A for enterprise sales.
Its influence may evolve from niche enabler to backbone of secure data economies, empowering "data superpowers" to tackle global challenges—turning yesterday's silos into tomorrow's collaborative edge, much like how it already revolutionizes B2B data without compromise.[3][4]
Bitfount has raised $13.0M across 2 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $8.0M Series A in July 2025.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 1, 2025 | $8M Series A | — | Business Growth Fund, Parkwalk Advisors, Ahren Innovation Capital, Foresight Group, Pace Ventures, Portfolio Ventures | Announced |
| May 12, 2022 | $5M Seed | Ahren Innovation Capital, Rick HAO | — | Announced |